A top donor to Donald Trump and other Maga Republicans has privately mocked the US president’s longtime position that he has an upper hand in trade negotiations with China, in a sign that even some loyal supporters have been uneasy with the White House strategy.
Liz Uihlein, the billionaire businesswoman who co-founded the office supply company Uline with her husband, Richard, sent an email to her staff earlier this year that contained a cartoon in which Trump can be seen playing cards with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. In the cartoon, Trump claims: “I hold the cards”, to which Xi responds: “The cards are made in China.”
The email, seen by the Guardian, appears to have been sent in April by an administrative assistant on Liz Uihlein’s behalf. Uihlein prefaced the cartoon with a short remark: “All – The usual. Liz”.
The barb is significant because it was sent by an important political ally to Trump and his movement. Liz and Richard Uihlein were the fourth largest political donors in the presidential election cycle, having given $143m to Republicans, according to Opensecrets, which tracks political giving.
A Uline spokesperson said Liz Uihlein had no comment. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Uline is a privately held company, and it is difficult to gauge the exact impact Trump’s tariff and other trade policies have on the office supply company. But people who spoke to the Guardian say Uline imports a significant amount of its merchandise from China and other parts of the world. It is not the first time Uihlein has weighed in on trade policy. Lamenting how the Covid-19 pandemic had hit the global supply chain, Uihlein wrote in a letter published in the Uline catalog after the 2020 election that “America sorely needs a coherent, largely united trade policy, if we don’t get it done, this century belongs to the Chinese.”
She is not the only mega-donor to have previously been critical of the president. Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot and a longtime Republican donor, said in an interview with the Financial Times in April that the tariffs the White House had announced at the time – which have since been rolled back – were too high and implemented too quickly, adding that the president had been “poorly advised”.
Langone reversed himself a few months later, in July, when he told CNBC’s Squawk Box that he was not longer concerned that Trump could use his position in the Oval Office to engage in retribution.
“I’m happy to say that I’m comfortable he’s not doing that. He’s acting presidential. I’m impressed with the people he’s got around him,” Langone said.
Trump has touted the US as having an edge in negotiations with China as recently as last month. In comments in the Oval Office he said the US and China would have a “great relationship”, but also noted that he could “destroy China” by playing “incredible cards” if he wanted to.
Trump is due to speak to Xi on Friday in the wake of a deal agreed by both countries that would keep the TikTok app running in the US.
Both sides have for now suspended the toughest tit-for-tat economic measures lobbed against each other since Trump’s second term began, when the US threatened tariffs as high as 145% against China. The US and China reached a pact to decrease the tariffs in May and renewed the lower rate in August in the wake of a new round of negotiations. That extension will expire in mid-November.
